During Tesla’s investor day event, Elon Musk provided information about the company’s latest progress in the field Robots equipped with humanoid artificial intelligence made available to the public. It’s been 19 months since this bot was first introduced. Tesla’s robot can now walk, pick up objects, and perform remarkable activities.
Elon Musk showed a short video of the first version of the Optimus robot at the Tesla shareholders meeting. He mentioned that Optimus has been upgraded from before and is even able to mimic the body movements of a politician.
Optimus couldn’t even walk when Tesla decided to work on developing a humanoid robot, he added. But now it is able to show different capabilities. Therefore, in his opinion, Optimus’ progress has been very surprising. Of course, this robot still performs simple movement activities and there is no news of fast and complex movements and doing parkour.
Optimus compared to Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot
The video in question shows Optimus walking. Of course, the speed of this robot seems less compared to Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot. Optimus uses his human-like fingers and hands to lift objects. In the video, we see one of the Optimus robots lift another robot’s severed arm off the test stand, pick it up, and carry it to an area where another robot is building a third robot.
It should be said that comparing Atlas and Optimus is not fair. Because for years, Atlas is the most advanced humanoid robot on this planet. Boston Dynamics has been developing humanoid robots since 1992. The first humanoid robot of this company named PETMAN was unveiled in 2009. In two years, this robot managed to walk, squat, kneel and maintain balance against external forces. The first version of Atlas was publicly unveiled in 2013, and it took him 10 years to learn to dance, parkour, and start doing some basic tasks. So it seems that the young robot Optimus has a long way to go and should be given a chance. Because in this short period of time, its progress seems beyond expectations.
Musk continues:
What sets Tesla apart is that it has the most advanced technology in real-life artificial intelligence. Therefore, the same artificial intelligence that is used to drive the cars of this company can also be used to develop robots. I don’t think anyone can compete with Tesla in the real world and in this particular field. It seems unwise to develop a humanoid robot that needs to be coded to perform all the movements. This robot should be able to walk independently and solve problems. You just have to show the way and teach him in simple things. Or just tell it what to do. These are the things that distinguish Tesla.
He added that Tesla is good at designing parts for mass production. Actually, all the moving parts of Optimus robot are designed by Tesla. These parts include the electric motor, gear box, power box, battery pack, and generally everything else that goes into the Optimus. According to him, there are not many ready-made parts for use in humanoid robots. Therefore, they have had to use Tesla’s Model S car design team to design Optimus parts as well.
The impact of humanoid robots on jobs
While no details have been released yet, it appears that Tesla’s goal is different from Boston Dynamics’. Tesla is developing its own robot and is thinking of mass-producing it to become an all-purpose labor-saving product.
It is worth noting that according to Musk and in response to concerns about this issue, these robots will create more jobs than destroy them. Musk emphasized that Optimus will be designed to help humans, not replace them. He pointed out that it is not a matter of replacing people and only increasing human capabilities.
General purpose humanoid robots are predicted to have an incredible impact on society as a whole. As Musk works hard to get this technology up and running as quickly as possible, he is well aware of what they mean.
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